When TV preacher Jerry Falwell announced that White House political strategist Karl Rove would deliver the commencement address at Liberty University May 8, Americans United quickly swung into action.

AU, noting that Liberty is a tax-exempt education institution, had some advice for Falwell and Rove in a press statement: Don't even think about turning the graduation ceremony into a Bush-for-president rally. (The IRS Code flatly bars churches and other tax-exempt entities from patisan electioneering.)

Is the National Day of Prayer Task Force using its non-profit status to broadcast a partisan message in this heated election season? President Bush hosted a National Day of Prayer event with religious leaders at the White House today, and the event will be broadcast in prime-time tonight on evangelical Christian cable and satellite TV outlets as well as on the Internet.

Residents of Darby, Mont., have just put a stop to an attempt to teach religion in science classes.

On Tuesday night, voters in the small town overwhelmingly chose two school board candidates who support teaching evolution. They rejected one board incumbent and another candidate supported by a local minister who proposed teaching "intelligent design." (One of the defeated candidates was Gina Schallenberger, the board chair and a vocal supporter of creationism.)

The mid-'90s evangelical men's group Promise Keepers is attempting to come back from its downward slide by transforming itself from a movement to a mission, according to the April 29 Denver Post. Dr. Tom Fortson, the new PK president, expressed concern about what he sees as "society's decaying moral values," as evidenced by the increasing acceptance of abortion, same-sex relationships and pornography.

With Religious Right forces poised to use this week's National Day of Prayer to push their radical agenda, many local communities are swept up in the fervor. In Florida, an enterprising staff member of the state Department of Juvenile Justice decided to post a link about the event to the Department's home page. The link led readers to the home page of the Florida Prayer Network, an organization that uses its site to encourage people to be baptized, to profess their faith in Jesus and to allow the Holy Spirit to control their lives.

The Internal Revenue Service is reminding churches and other charities to avoid partisan political actions. Because churches and charities are exempt from income tax, they are prohibited from endorsing candidates, donating to campaigns, raising funds or distributing campaign materials. While houses of worship may address political and social issues, federal tax law bars tax-exempt organizations from electioneering.

Roy Moore isn't Moses, and Capitol Hill sure isn't Mt. Sinai. But the theocracy-minded former Alabama chief justice wandered in from the political wilderness yesterday to lobby Congress for his Ten Commandments bill. Ever since being ordered by federal courts to move his two-and-half-ton Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building, Moore has found it easy to keep his Religious Right crusade alive.

In a recent Christian Science Monitor op-ed, Frederick Clarkson holds the Religious Right accountable for its distortions of American history. Clarkson points out the ways in which theocracy-minded activists build on the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Belvidere, N.J., is the latest battleground in the fight over state-sponsored prayer. The town council voted last week in favor of separation of church and state by declining to publicly support the National Day of Prayer. James Dobson's right-wing Focus on the Family sponsors prayer events at municipal buildings every year on the first Thursday in May.